Servants of the Storm (10 page)

Just as my eyes reach the front door, it starts to swing open. For a reason that I can’t comprehend, I’m scared, and I press back against the bar like there’s some safety in the heavy wood.

But it’s just Baker. And he’s panting.

“Sweet baby Jesus, Dovey. What the hell are you doing?” He rushes in, and the door slams behind him with a boom.

“What am I doing? What are
you
doing?” I shoot back.

His eyes are wide and frantic, his hands are shaking, and his
face is covered with sweat despite the cold. And his navy-blue peacoat is gone.

“I followed you,” he says, like it’s obvious. “After that whole Carly thing at 616, I was worried you might get in trouble. And who’s this guy?” He glowers at the gorgeous bartender, who gives him a bemused nod.

“Where’s your coat?” I ask.

“Oh. I got mugged.” He flips out the empty pockets of his jeans and paces, angry and amped up and unable to hold still. “While you were talking to the crazy pirate. Couple of bums took my coat and money and phone, just a block away from where you were chatting it up. It was awesome. Not that you effing noticed. And no, I’m totally not freaking out, because getting mugged is perfectly normal for me.”

“Jesus, dude. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

Baker runs his hands through his hair and rolls up the sleeves of his flannel. His face is red, his pupils bare pinpoints. He can’t stop shaking. “They didn’t even have a gun—just waved a pocketknife at me. But I didn’t want to lose you, so I threw my stuff on the ground and ran.”

“I’m sorry. I mean, thank you. But I’m fine. Really. Do we need to call your mom? Can you go back and get your stuff?”

He waves it away. “They needed it more than I do. And my folks don’t need anything else to worry about. I’m just glad you’re okay. But seriously. What is this place? It’s creepy with a capital
K
. No offense.” This last he says to the guy in the bowler hat.

“None taken,” the bartender says with a wide, slow smile. “You look like you need a drink.”

Baker tugs on his empty pockets. “Just got mugged.”

“It’s on the house.”

Baker sits on the stool next to mine, and I spin back around to face the bar. There’s a Shirley Temple waiting there, the bright pink liquid fizzing deliciously. Something tugs at my mind, something familiar, but I ignore it. I slide three cherries off a plastic sword and eat them one by one, then take a long slurp that burns down my throat to settle in my belly. A smile spreads over my face, and I start to relax. I really did need a drink.

The bartender slides a tall glass of Coke in front of Baker, complete with the same sword of cherries. Baker, who knows my addiction to maraschino cherries, hands the sword to me wordlessly, sets the straw on the bar, and tosses the drink back in a few long, slow gulps. I eat the cherries and have a little sword fight with myself. Then Baker slumps down onto his elbows and chuckles for no good reason. I look at him, and we grin at each other. I guess I’m forgiven. He takes a plastic sword from me, and we make lightsaber noises while we battle.

My stomach rumbles, and I look around for a minute before asking the bartender for a menu.

“Kitchen’s closed,” he says with an uneasy glance at the curtained window to the kitchen.

“Bummer.” Baker burps.

“Let me refill your drink,” the bartender replies.

He slides Baker a new glass of Coke, and Baker spins around to face the room while he slurps it down like he’s dying of thirst. I focus on the bartender.

“You look really familiar,” I say.

He glances down at my empty glass, then back to the glass he’s polishing. But he won’t meet my eyes.

“I’m just filling in,” he says carefully. “But can I give you some advice?”

He leans closer with an inviting smile, and I lean closer too. Baker is oblivious, crunching on the ice in his Coke and staring into space. The bartender gets near enough to whisper into my ear and says, “You can’t come back here again. You’re already on their radar. You can’t fight this. You need to forget about Carly. They’ll never let her go. Everything would be a lot better if you just took your medicine.”

The bartender’s breath is hot on my jaw and smells of cinnamon. He pulls back just a little and puts his elbows on the bar and looks at me. This time it’s straight into my eyes, and his pupils are huge, like caves, like vacuums, like the black part of space that has no stars, surrounded by guileless blue. “Take your pills and forget all of this,” he breathes.

I almost get lost in his eyes. But one thing sticks with me, one sharp blade rasping against my memory. Finding the words is painful and hard. But I dredge them up from the muck, and they fall from my mouth one by one, as heavy as bricks.

“I can never forget Carly,” I say. “I promised. I flushed my meds, and I’ll never quit fighting.”

His eyes finally leave mine, and I find I can blink again, and there are tears on my cheeks. The bartender leans back and studies me, his gorgeous face tilted perfectly, a strip of honey-blond hair falling over one eye. It’s like he’s seeing straight through me, watching my heart beat covered in blood, and something warms in my chest. Without meaning to I lean even farther toward him, my pulse quickening. That part of me that was lost in the blue of his eyes wants to throw away the GPS and get sucked right back in.

“You shouldn’t even be able to argue right now,” he says softly.

“My mom’s a lawyer,” I murmur. “It’s in my blood.” My lips part slightly.

“You change things,” he says.

“You’re pretty,” I say, and he laughs.

“Pretty is as pretty does. Maybe I’m not as pretty as you think I am.”

“I’ve got eyes. I see you.” I lick my lips. “How about another drink, pretty boy?”

Instead he takes the empty glass that I’ve been twirling in my fingers and chucks it into the garbage can with a crash. With his back to me he fiddles with something behind the bar. When he turns around, he’s holding a plastic sword with three cherries, dripping red. He leans close, and I eagerly surge toward him, breathing faster, heart fluttering, my eyes on his cinnamony mouth. My lips are open when I feel the brush of sweetness. One after the other I take the cherries he offers with my teeth and swallow them down, and a hot slippery fire blooms in my middle.

When our foreheads are almost touching, he gazes into my eyes and says, “I want you to remember this. If you really want to know the truth, come find me. My name is Isaac.”

Our lips are only inches apart. I can feel his breath on my face, the warmth of his forehead just millimeters away. I feel dizzy and reeling and floaty, like he’s the only thing tethering me to the earth. And I can’t help thinking about how well I’d be tethered if he were kissing me.

His eyes are intent on mine, full of black fire ringed in ice. He’s a force of nature, this beautiful bartender, and he told me to come find him. I promise myself that I will.

“Go home,” he breathes. “And wake up.”

Beside me Baker swivels and falls off his stool. Isaac and I jump apart guiltily. The connection is lost, the moment gone. Isaac turns back to his bottles, and I sit up straight and feign interest in tracing the wood grain of the bar.

“What happened?” Baker says with a dreamy slur. “Where’s my Coke?”

His drink is gone. I spin on my stool to glance all around the room, and everything feels sharp and threatening, like a card house that could collapse at any second.

“I think it’s time to go,” I say, putting a hand down to help Baker. He slaps it away.

“I’m a big boy,” he says. “I can do it myself.”

When I turn back around, Isaac has disappeared. On the bar beside three plastic swords is a business card for a hotel I’ve never
heard of, the Catbird Inn. I hold it out to Baker, who’s wrestling with his bar stool like he’s trying to have a thumb war with it.

“Have you ever heard of this place?” I ask.

“You’re pretty,” he says with a goofy smile.

I snort and stand, hitching Baker up around the waist to help him out of the restaurant. How I’m going to get back to the car carrying him is beyond me. He’s a lot bigger than I am these days.

I hear something move, and my heart beats faster. It’s on the other side of the
EMPLOYEES ONLY
door, and it sounds like something heavy being dragged across the floor, a whisper of plastic and a heavy
clunk
. I breathe
“Hush”
into Baker’s ear and freeze, but I can’t pick out any words. Just a low, dangerous chuckle that sends shivers down my spine.

I’m not sure where Isaac went, whether he slipped out through the front door or the back one. Or maybe he used a secret passage, since these old historic buildings are full of them. But if he disappeared, then I’m pretty sure we should too. My imagination goes into overdrive. I’m certain I hear the rasp of a tarp, and then a sick, wet
clunk
like a cleaver cutting through bone echoes through the closed door. I know that I definitely don’t want to see what’s on the other side.

Half carrying, half pulling, I propel Baker out of the restaurant and into the still night. With a heavy
thud
the door closes behind me. The lone streetlight is out, and the sign is dark. At least I know where I am now, at the corner of Broughton Street and Bull Street. I’ve got to walk several blocks back to my car
carrying a boy who’s a lot heavier than he used to be. And he’s already been mugged once tonight.

“Can you walk?” I ask.

He giggles. “On purpose?”

“Jesus, son. This is serious.”

He giggles again. I push him up against the streetlight as gently but firmly as possible, my hands on his chest. I get right up in his face, and his breath catches. He stops giggling and goes still, his face tilting toward mine, entranced and hopeful.

In Carly’s sassy voice I say, “Joshua Baker, you best quit acting like a fool. Stand up and walk like a man!”

He gulps and pushes his hair out of his eyes and blinks at me a few times, then takes on his weight and stands. He’s a little wobbly, but now he looks like he’s the one who’s seen a ghost.

“Damn, Dovey,” is all he can say.

I get my keys out and advance down the street with Baker stumbling on my heels. The air is cold and sharp and still, the stars obscured by clouds. The tall, broken buildings seem to lean in over the cracked streets, and I trip over chunks of old bricks and tree roots gone wild. The stores, the restaurants, the offices—they’re empty, as flimsy as the papery gray layers of an abandoned hornets’ nest. And just like with a hornets’ nest, something in me senses a latent, malevolent buzz, like a few half-asleep denizens are waiting deep within. Every now and then I think I hear footsteps following us, but when I stop and listen, they’re gone. Baker is silent behind me, except for the sound of his teeth chattering from the cold.

Finally we pass a streetlamp that’s actually on, and the warm circle of light feels like home. A group of girls walks past us, fluttering their eyelashes at Baker and whispering, and I raise an eyebrow at him. He gives me his old, impish grin and a knowing smirk, like he’s used to this sort of thing. I hadn’t really noticed until this week, but I guess he has gotten cuter. And he’s not acting drunk anymore either.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

“I felt fine before.”

“You were acting drunk.”

“I didn’t feel drunk,” he says, stepping next to me instead of skulking behind me. He digs his hands deep into his pockets and purses his lips while he’s thinking. “Relaxed, maybe.”

“So relaxed you fell off a stool and lost your drink?”

He nudges me in the side and says, “Whatever. You were making googly eyes at the bartender. He’s got to be at least twenty.”

“Ooh, are you jealous?” I say in a singsong voice.

“Maybe.” He blushes, and I’ve never been so grateful to see my car. I pop the trunk and rustle around for my backpack, utterly avoiding his eyes and not saying a word. He knows better than to try and open my door for me, but he must feel as uneasy as I do, the way he scans the alley while I hurry into the car.

“Why’d you go there, anyway?” Baker asks as he slides into the front seat. The fake leather must be freezing through his flannel, but he’s too intent on me to notice.

“I told you,” I say, trying to get the engine to turn over in the
cold. “I’m looking for Carly, and I’ll do anything to find her, even go to creepy bars.”

He takes a deep breath and turns to face me.

“Dovey, it’s easy to find Carly. She’s buried on the hill in Bonaventure Cemetery. She’s gone. Have you talked to your therapist about this? Or told your parents?”

The engine finally sputters to life, and I reverse onto the street with a squeal. I gun the car through downtown, running a few yellow lights and cornering on two wheels to keep from having to stop and acknowledge what my supposed friend just said. We turn onto Truman Parkway, and I push the old Buick as fast as she’ll go, daring Baker to say a single word and risk splitting my attention. One tiny shift of the steering wheel could send us crashing through the divider or plummeting to our death in the forest far below. The lonely highway surges on and on in the dark, and I can barely see the lines, and it feels like an old map on a flat world, like we might just be near the end of everything. Like we might fall off the edge.

“Your ‘Check Engine’ light is on,” he says quietly.

In response I press harder on the gas.

When I screech to a stop in front of his house, he pauses and looks at me like it’s my turn to say something, but I look straight ahead, chin up.

“I’m sorry you’re angry,” he says. “But someone has to be honest with you. That’s what friends do.”

I turn slowly, jaw clenched, and meet his gaze.

“Friends never give up,” I say.

“That’s what I said.”

He turns, shoulders slumped, and walks to his front door. I can see the silhouettes of his younger sisters mobbing him like puppies, but I don’t let myself smile.

What he said, and what I said? Not the same thing.

BACK AT MY HOUSE, I’VE
never been so glad that my mom is working late. I’m starving, so I heat up a Hot Pocket and gulp it down as soon as it’s cool. It sits in my stomach like a cannonball as I consider how complicated things have gotten. I can’t believe that Baker would dismiss me so easily. I may be dramatic and I may be pushy, but I’ve never been a fool. Baker was always the most cautious of our trio growing up—the one who reminded Carly and me of the possibility of getting spanked or grounded, when we were already halfway over the fence. But his mischievous side always won out in the end. Either that or Carly and I were simply unstoppable when we were together. Maybe I just need more evidence to convince him. Maybe I just need more time to get my head clear.